Ernie Fitzpatrick asked:


Remember the days not too long ago when there more than a half dozen Democratic candidates engaging what was called a debate? And then there were three? Now there’s just two. Obama and Mama head to head!

Senator Hillary Clinton of New York and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois in a good old Texas throw down. In this corner, the orator par excellence and in the other corner, the debater of all evil right wing conspiracy theories.

The debate was held on the campus of the University of Texas, and carried live on CNN, CNN International, and on Spanish Univision.

For me the key phrase came from Hillary Clinton at the end when she said “Whatever. Whatever happens in this campaign we’ll both be okay.” That sounds like a resignation to what’s happening and may happen come March 4th. We’ll know in 12 days. Sounds like an hasta la vista Patti. On the other side of the coin, Hillary’s attempt to put in one of those pre-planned cute lines bombed when she said Barack was for “change that was zeroxed”.

And the crowd actually did boo her.

The debate was far more civil than most people thought. So much of a debate has to do with “expectations”. Hillary NEEDED a knock out punch. She didn’t get it. Barack just needed to hold his own. He DID that. Moving from the boo to the most funny line was when Obama said that Hillary was indicating that he and his supporters were not being real, or as what Obama called DELUSIONAL.

He asked. Are twenty million people who have voted for me delusional? Are all of the major newspapers who have endorsed him in Texas somehow DUPED?

So, it’s onward with the Texas-Ohio battle. Will the Obama tsunami keep rolling? Polls show that Obama is closing the gap and moving closer as he has historically done over the past month. And with twelve days to go, more money than Hillary has, and more boots on the ground, I can’t see Hillary winning, at least not in Texas.

Back to the campaign trail where Hillary now has another 527 giving her $10,000,000 to help her sagging television budget. If Hillary loses, sh’ll go out fighting.



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Jordan Eller asked:


The Decline of Debate

Debate is, potentially, a great thing. It’s a chance to air your opinions and have others agree or disagree with you. It’s like a sword duel in a way, strike with stats, parry with logic, etc. It’s an intellectual wonderland, and in the end, if one can say it ever truly ends, maybe someone will change their view.

However, it seems that lately debate has become a series of personal attacks and hasty generalizations, which are both, ironically, logical fallacies. It has become constant attacks of: -you’re just ignorant-, -two kids died imitating a stunt on TV, so TV is evil-, and the like. Another common attack is –they manipulated the facts-. That last one is particularly amusing, as both sides tend to use it and, often, both sides are right to varying degrees. People manipulate facts, there’s a big surprise! How often, readers, have you yourself stretched the facts (truth) to get yourselves out of a jam? I’m not saying it’s right, but if every debater told the absolute truth and the exact facts, a lot of debates would be settled very quickly.

Although this may seem to just be an attack on how people debate (the process, not the people, mind you), it’s really more of a way to get others, like you readers, to really think about debates on TV, radio, the Internet, etc. and think to yourself “Is this logical or just a bunch of generalization and fancy-sounding words?” Maybe if enough people really consider how they debate and how others debate, we can return the activity to its rightful place as an intellectual and honorable event.



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